


Black Umbrella

by Mithen



Category: Graveyard Book - Gaiman
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-04
Updated: 2010-03-04
Packaged: 2017-10-07 17:24:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rainy day lessons in the graveyard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Umbrella

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Mechanical Bride's ghostly, haunting cover of Rihanna's ["Umbrella."](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaq8syrlDB4) It works perfectly as background music while reading!

_ You have my heart  
And we'll never be worlds apart... _

The ghosts don't feel the rain, it falls through them like mist. Bod, on the other hand, feels every drop. Some days Bod likes splashing in the puddles and watching beads of water form on the wrought iron gates, but today he is on his way to lessons and he feels damp and solid and ugly.

Miss Lupescu is waiting for him, sitting on a large, flat tombstone. Bod sees her first through curtains of rain as he slogs up the hill, a gray figure on gray stone. She holds a large black umbrella over her head with fastidious care. Bod ducks under it and immediately is surrounded with the drumming sound of rain, a curtain shutting out the rest of the graveyard. Miss Lupescu smells faintly of something, years later, Bod will realize is wet dog. As of yet, though, Bod has never met a dog and thus she smells merely familiar, if a bit musty.

She looks down her long nose at him and sniffs. "You are wet, boy," she announces as if this were not perfectly obvious. Bod starts to answer and sneezes instead. He hunkers down on the stone, wet and miserable, feeling Miss Lupescu watching him.

"It is no good studying if you are simply going to be taken ill," she states with a vaguely condemning air, as though Bod might get sick just to spite her. "Here." She rummages in her bag and produces a thermos; when the lid is removed a savory scent fills the air between them. "Go on," she adds, waving it at him.

He looks at it dubiously--he's had enough of Miss Lupescu's cuisine to be cautious. But a tentative sip reveals it to be hot soup with chicken and some kind of dumplings. He drinks the rest eagerly. "I'm ready to study now," he says after draining the last drops.

"Always in such a rush," she sniffs. "Sit, boy. Let your body digest a little."

Sitting close to her on the tombstone, Bod realizes Miss Lupescu's body is surprisingly warm, heat radiating from her slight frame. The rain on the umbrella is a roaring drone, and he is warm on the inside, and his head is so heavy that soon it's resting on her shoulder, and then her lap.

Miss Lupescu sings a crooning lullaby under the rain, an old one of her people. There will be time for lessons later, when the boy is warm and healthy.


End file.
